Sparse Roll Call July 19 Nautica

[the more ports the better]

We are on Nautica July 19.  Just about sold out ship.  I booked a few great private tours.  Typically, the roll call would be full of people looking to share tours but our roll call consists of a few people with one posting maybe once per month.  We plan to take the booked tours by ourselves but it is always fun to meet new friends so a bit disappointing.  I figured as we were getting closer to sailing it would get more active but no one has posted for quite awhile.  Has anyone else been having this same experience?

[AMHuntFerry]

1 hour ago, the more ports the better said:

We are on Nautica July 19.  Just about sold out ship.  I booked a few great private tours.  Typically, the roll call would be full of people looking to share tours but our roll call consists of a few people with one posting maybe once per month.  We plan to take the booked tours by ourselves but it is always fun to meet new friends so a bit disappointing.  I figured as we were getting closer to sailing it would get more active but no one has posted for quite awhile.  Has anyone else been having this same experience?

On our cruise last week, only about one-sixth of the passengers were repeaters. There was also a college alumni group that was pretty sizable (probably at least as large as the number of repeaters). If your cruise has a significant number of people in groups, that could explain it.

[Tyskie]

We're on the 2 Sept Riviera.  Ours was very quiet.  It has picked up some but sharing tours is practically non-existent.

 

We're longtime cruisers but this is our first on Oceania. I'm blaming the lack of participation on the pandemic and FB.  Found this also on Princess & NCL 🤷‍♀️

[the mice]

Just back from cruise on Marina that ended about 10 days ago,  Roll call wasn’t very active despite large number of repeat cruisers.  But also a large number of 1st timers.  

 

Of the few posters, most were asking to hear if anyone had planned private excursions and were looking for others to join, but no one seemed to want to plan any themselves,  It can be a lot of work and/or responsibility for the planner, so personally, having done it on more active roll calls, I am disinclined to do it again unless it is a very active roll call with engaged participants.  

 

For this particular itinerary, it was easy to DIY.  And while we didn't do it on this cruise, we are also willing to pay for private tours for just the 2 of us ŵhen there is something we want to do on on our own timetable.

 

I should add that low participation was also evident on our Azamara B2B in October,  Usually AZ cruisers are active on roll calls, but this may have been a factor of AZ having promos with lots of OBC.

 

The Simply More changes kick in on July 1.  Perhaps people have booked O excursions and may drop them once the new program details are out.

Edited June 24, 2023 by the mice
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[LHT28]

With the cruise line  cancelling or missing ports  people seem to want to stick with ship's tours

 

 Also since the introduction of O LIFE  people seem to book those

When it first came out the roll calls wee pretty dead  for sharing tours 

we would be luck to get enough to make it worthwhile

JMO

[Elaine Horowitz]

On 6/23/2023 at 5:59 PM, the more ports the better said:

We are on Nautica July 19.  Just about sold out ship.  I booked a few great private tours.  Typically, the roll call would be full of people looking to share tours but our roll call consists of a few people with one posting maybe once per month.  We plan to take the booked tours by ourselves but it is always fun to meet new friends so a bit disappointing.  I figured as we were getting closer to sailing it would get more active but no one has posted for quite awhile.  Has anyone else been having this same experience?

I found the same thing and was surprised.  Our last trip on the Oceania Riviera this March, we had over 60+ pages of postings.  This time we booked our 4 per person tours with Oceania and the rest we are probably booking with Viator.  Looking forward to this cruise even though we have been to all the ports except for Patmos Island and Trapani, Sicily.

[the more ports the better]

Hi Elaine,

 

I will post a response on our roll call with our ideas if you want to follow up.

 

We have the same thing going on.  Our Riveria roll call in October is already pages long with all kinds of tours being planned.  This one is almost non existent.  Crazy!

 

[pinotlover]

A couple thoughts on the differences:

 

1.  We had two large groups on our Vista cruise, both having several exclusive group only tours offered. 
 

2.  If it’s a longer cruise with a high geriatric count, the RC will be dead. Many only go where Momma Oceania leads them.

 

3.  When I put forth the effort, organize a tour, put it out on the RC, I have always been able to fill the tours. Oftentimes having to turn people away. Sometimes a little initiative is all it takes to get things going.

 

4.  After #3, I have then been invited to participate in other private tours not advertised on the RC.

 

 

[Harters]

We're just back from Nautica. We only booked it a few weeks ago and I went straight to the roll call. It had been active when it was started last year but in the past months it had been very flat. Nothing of interest to me there.

[Host Jazzbeau]

My experience on cruise lines with included excursions is that roll calls lose their will to live...

[di T]

On 7/2/2023 at 7:07 PM, Harters said:

We're just back from Nautica. We only booked it a few weeks ago and I went straight to the roll call. It had been active when it was started last year but in the past months it had been very flat. Nothing of interest to me there.

Hi, so what was your opinion of the cruise? We had a lovely time but not in a hurry to book Oceania again! Dianne

[Harters]

Dianne - just about to post my review to the forum